Gov­ern­ment will next week add $2.93 bil­lion in sup­ple­men­tal funds to the 2026 Bud­get, main­ly to pay for salary in­creas­es for 62,050 unionised work­ers - and the mid-year re­view of the Bud­get will sub­se­quent­ly be de­liv­ered on June 15.

Fi­nance Sec­re­tary Petal-Ann Roberts an­nounced the date yes­ter­day, adding that the bud­get de­bate will be held on June 25.

The Gov­ern­ment is propos­ing sweep­ing in­creas­es to fines con­tained across dozens of laws, with some of the most eye-catch­ing changes tar­get­ing of­fences in­volv­ing the pro­duc­tion of vine­gar and co­conut prod­ucts.

Trinidad and To­ba­go gen­er­ates more waste per per­son than any oth­er coun­try in the Caribbean, ac­cord­ing to Ugo Blan­co, Res­i­dent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Unit­ed Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP) Mul­ti-Coun­try Of­fice.

At­tor­ney and pro­cure­ment ex­pert Dr Mar­garet Satya Rose has re­placed Janelle John-Bates on the Op­po­si­tion bench, but Faris Al-Rawi has sur­vived Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les’ “ro­ta­tion.”

Leg­is­la­tion to reg­u­late so­cial me­dia for chil­dren un­der age 12 will be among Gov­ern­ment’s leg­isla­tive agen­da for the Sec­ond Ses­sion of Par­lia­ment—and Gov­ern­ment al­so projects of­fer­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 8,000-plus jobs ahead via its Hous­ing and Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion projects.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has again sig­nalled that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) will not sup­port any fur­ther ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency (SoE).

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has re­ject­ed claims of bias amid com­plaints by trade unions and ac­tivists that pub­lic demon­stra­tions are be­ing un­fair­ly re­strict­ed us­ing the State of Emer­gency (SoE)

Ac­tivist Wen­dell Ever­s­ley says he is con­cerned that Trinidad and To­ba­go is head­ing to­wards be­com­ing a po­lice state, fol­low­ing new State of Emer­gency (SoE) reg­u­la­tions that pro­hib­it pub­lic protests with­in 500 me­tres of 15 des­ig­nat­ed lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing the Par­lia­ment.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has hailed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s achieve­ment of a Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (UN­SC) seat as a vote of con­fi­dence in T&T’s lead­er­ship, cred­i­bil­i­ty and grow­ing in­flu­ence with­in the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. How­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has point­ed out that T&T was al­so on the UN­SC in 1985 due to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment’s work.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has warned po­lice that they are run­ning out of ex­cus­es in their bat­tle against crim­i­nals.

Res­i­dents of Long­denville Road, Ch­agua­nas, are try­ing to come to terms with a dead­ly shoot­ing that claimed the lives of two sib­lings, af­ter a masked gun­man stormed the house where they lived.